Genealogists make requests for government documents under the Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA). The Government has proposed amendments to their
FOIA process.

The US Department of Commerce announced in the February 27 Federal Register
proposed rulemaking notice on updated and revised FOIA rules, which includes
methods of submitting requests and appeals. The notice also updates privacy
rules and requests. Comments must be submitted on or before March 31, 2014
and must include the agency name [Department of Commerce] and docket number
[Docket No. 140127076-4076-01] or RIN [RIN 0605-AA33] for this rulemaking.
The methods of submission and to where they go are included in the notice
which may be read at:http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-02-27/pdf/2014-03633.pdf

Records under the FOIA include all Government records, regardless of
format, medium or physical characteristics, and electronic records and
information, audiotapes, videotapes, Compact Disks, DVDs, and photographs.
A request should include specific information about each record sought, such
as the date, title or name, author, recipient, and subject matter of the
record, and the name and location of the office where the record might be
found.
Twenty (20) working days (i.e., excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal
public holidays) from date of receipt of the request is the amount of time
the regulation proposes to make a determination whether to comply with a
FOIA request . Whether the request is approved or not, the requestor must be
notified of the decision in writing. If the decision is to approve, payment
must be made before the information is provided.
The fees to be charged are based on the cost of the search and the salary
rate plus 16 percent for the researcher's time and any copies at $0.16 USD
per page.

Details are included in the proposed regulation that can be found at the
above-mentioned url.

The National Archives (US) genealogy programs for the
month of March have been announced. The focus will be on Women’s history as
March is Women’s History Month.All
programs at the National Archives are free and open to the public. The programs
will be held at the National Archives in Washington DC at will be held in the
National Archives Building Research Center (Room G-25), in Washington, DC.Several programs will be repeated at the
College Park, MD facility—they are marked with an asterisk (*).

These are several of the programs that might be of
interest:

Tuesday, March 4, at 11 a.m.Our Ancestors are Hiding on the World Wide
Web*March6, 11 AM at College Park

Wednesday, March 5, at 11 a.m.Introduction to Genealogy at the National
Archives

The National Archives Live streams and archives their
book reviews and evening programs and some of the daytime programs. This is
free.Go to: http://www.ustream.tv/usnationalarchives
to check if any of the above may be live streamed or archived.

To learn more about National Women’s History Month whose
theme for 2014 is: Celebrating Women of Character, Courage, and Commitment Go
to: http://www.nwhp.org/

Yet the “Holy Roman Empire of the
German Nation” was German, and it defined what “German” meant. It was also the
home of an ancient Jewish culture—dating back to the real Romans—and hundreds
of Jewish communities, large and small.

Until 1871 Germany’s Jews were
subjects of dozens of different states, each with different laws and attitudes
toward its Jewish population. Napoleon emancipated most of Germany’s Jews and
led Prussia to do likewise for almost all the rest; but as soon as he was gone,
the many German states—most with new boundaries—returned their Jews to one or
another special legal status.

Those legal statuses, make the
researcher’s job more complicated, because the same type of information—birth,
change of residence, etc.—might be kept by different authorities and in
different ways. Roger will review where the larger Jewish congregations and
rural communities lived in Germany, and how to determine which states ruled
over them at a given time using examples of how family histories are recorded
across longer periods and crossing boundaries.

Speaker: Roger Lustig is a
genealogical researcher based in Princeton, NJ. Since 2002 he has specialized
in the Jewish families of Prussian Poland, especially Upper Silesia and West
Prussia. He has worked in archives in the US, Germany and Poland He is the
research coordinator for GerSIG .

The Jewish Genealogical Society of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County is dedicated to sharing genealogical information, techniques and research tools with anyone interested in Jewish genealogy and family history.

There is no charge to attend the meeting.

For more information contact information@jgscv.org or see our website at www.jgscv.org